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She should be listening to him, but she was watching how he lit up when he talked about running a kitchen, how his whole demeanor changed as he forgot to be on guard. She was sad, because she’d always wanted him to feel that way about Carrigan’s, but she was also really, really turned on. He’d built her a spreadsheet so her business could be a success. A business he hated and actively hoped would fail.
She forgot her entire plan of begging him to just be friends.
“…you can obviously change any of the categories that don’t work, but I think the formula I input will help—”
How could she resist that? She lifted her hand to his cheek, and he turned his face into her palm reflexively. His eyes widened as she tugged on the front of his shirt with her other hand. He wrapped his arms around her waist, burying his face in her neck. His beard scraped against her skin, and the pantry crackled with an electrical charge of want.
Hannah’s hand slid around to his hair, yanking his mouth to hers. They melted together, exactly as they had that night in the library. This time, though, instead of comfort and muscle memory, it was frantic, incandescent want. Levi backed Hannah up against the door, and she wrapped a leg around his waist. Her internal monologue had completely fled in the face of her lust.
His fingers dug into her ass, and she moaned into his mouth. In between kisses, he mumbled, “I should tell you not to kiss me unless you’re ready to be together, but I’m not going to stop you.”
She took a deep breath. “We should not be fooling around in this closet.”
“No room to make out on the kitchen counters right now. Plus my mom might find us,” he said against her mouth. He fit his body more fully against hers, and she lit up like fireworks.
She seriously had to stop having sex with her husband.
“What was that?” Levi asked as they got back into their clothes. “Not that I’m complaining. But. I’m a little confused.”
She turned away, trying to get her bearings, and he braided her hair while he waited for her. How was he so calm, and why couldn’t she be? “I don’t know, I convinced myself I was going to use this time to find peace with you, and then there was so much touching, and flour, and the wedding planner was flirting with you! Right in front of me! And I did not feel peaceful.”
“Are you jealous?”
She turned back, and he was grinning.
“Yes! It’s awful.” She glared at him. “Stop grinning! I was here, wasting away, while you were wandering the world, sleeping with who knows how many people. And now you’re flaunting it in my face that you’re beautiful and ooze charisma and people just…want you.”
“Oozing charisma sounds kind of gross,” he said somewhat nonsensically. He was trying to fix his hair but failing, so she stood on her tiptoes and fixed it for him.
“It is gross,” Hannah assured him.
“Zero. I was sleeping with zero people,” he said quietly, his face serious.
She froze. “What? Why not?”
“Um, because I was married, I guess?” he said.
She stared at him, flabbergasted.
“Look, Hannah, it’s flattering that you think I could flirt with the wedding planner successfully, truly.”
She raised an eyebrow in disbelief, and he raised a shoulder in response. “I’m never going to sleep with anyone else, I suspect. If it’s not you, it’s probably not anyone. That’s not your fault or your responsibility, but it’s true.”
“You’re not going to make me feel bad about ruining your sex life,” she told him.
He started to answer, but she interrupted him.
“I’m sorry, that’s not fair. I know you didn’t come home so you could have sex again without feeling guilty about your marriage vows.”
“I don’t feel guilty. I don’t feel sexual attraction for other people, but we can talk about that later.”
She blinked at him. That was fairly crucial information.
“I came home because I realized the whole world meant nothing if you weren’t with me, and your whole world is here.”
That stung, that he thought of her as someone whose whole world was this hundred-some acres of land. But whose fault was that, really? She’d kept parts of herself quiet as a sort of test to him, to see if he loved her enough to guess them without her having to talk about them. And for a while, Carrigan’shadbeen her whole life.
Still, whoever was at fault, he was wrong about her. Carrigan’s might be the center of her world, but it wasn’t the whole thing. Shehadwanted to see everything with him. Just, not then, not yet, not until she’d made sure Carrigan’s would be safe to come home to.
